These prophetic world were spoken by the first prime minister of India by Jawahar Lal Nehru in Parliament on the eve of their independence from Britain. His speech continued - "India will awake to life and freedom". Similar words can now be said for British homosexual citizens living in England and Wales for 'same sex marriages' and from October in Scotland - excluding Northern Ireland for their own religious reasons. This is a great day for enlightened thinking - a new thoughtful, compassionate, charitable and moral world has opened up in this land. The Church of England has given up its resistance to the changes, the Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledge this the other day - no doubt influence by his family. I can recall as many people of my age (71) when homosexuals were routinely tyrannized here. As a policeman in Soho in the early 1960's many of my colleagues would take great pleasure in arresting them in public lavatories. I think the beginnings of a 'sea change' occurred when Sir John Gielgud (1904-2000) the great Shakespearean actor was arrested for - Importuning for Immoral Purposes in a Leicester Square toilet. There was the usual outcry by the gutter press, but the then broadsheets, were far more relaxed, and took a different stance. The world didn't come to an end as the Red Tops had prophetically said, in a Cassandra like manner!
So I applaud this 'brave new world' that we have entered - this is a far better country today than it was 24 hours ago - the world has not ended. It didn't come to an end in India in 1947.
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